Is it to be Lincoln or Sisyphus?

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

By May 1864, Abraham Lincoln was in real trouble. The spectacular victories of the past year at Gettysburg and Vicksburg were mostly forgotten — in the manner that we no longer talk much about the amazing campaign in Afghanistan or the historic three-week drive on Baghdad. Read more →

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Who loses and who wins in the high-stakes poker in Iraq?

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

It is not hard to determine who wishes the United States to succeed in rebuilding Iraq along lines that will promote consensual government, personal freedom, and economic vitality: Hardly anyone. At least, few other than the Iraqi and American people. Read more →

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The enemy is growing desperate.

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

After the first two conventional military victories in Afghanistan of November 2001 and this spring in Iraq, the recent bombings suggest that we are now entering a third phase: A desperate last-ditch war of attrition in which our enemies feel that bombing, suicide murdering, assassination, and general terrorism against Westerners the world over might still achieve what conventional military operations did not. Read more →

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We need a clean slate in the postbellum world.

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

What is a base? Is it something lke the facility in Saudi Arabia that enrages the local population, provides a rallying cry for unhinged Islamists, protects a medieval monarchy from an emerging consensual society in Iraq, and can’t be used fully in a time of war? Read more →

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The home front is more worrisome than the battlefield.

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

Democratic critics keep deconstructing federal reports about intelligence lapses that might have led to the tragedy of September 11. While they fault the administration — in some cases correctly — for an apparent lack of vigilance, they do not dare explore the real heart of the disaster. Read more →

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Don’t listen to the latest groupspeak.

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

Just as we migrate from Scott Peterson to Kobe Bryant and back to Jessica Lynch, so too did the snowy peaks of Afghanistan bow out to the sandstorm-induced pause in Iraq and that in turn to 16 words of the president’s speech. Read more →

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Our rocky return to a much-needed balance in foreign policy.

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

The Greeks were fascinated with the need to adhere to the mean (to meson). The idea became commonplace that there was a sort of natural equilibrium in things that tended to pull events, emotions, and people themselves back to the center, away from both hubris and inaction. Read more →

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Episode 19 of The Victor Davis Hanson Podcast

On this week’s edition, Victor shares his thoughts on Donald Trump’s announcement of military force to counter riots, the President’s lack of focus, the paradox that is Joe Biden, Andrew Cuomo’s latest failures, Tucker Carlson’s clobbering of conservative lecturers, America’s standing in the world, and lefty media sanctimony.

Episode 18 of The Victor Davis Hanson Podcast

On this week’s episode, Victor discusses the emptiness and diminished legacy of the Obama administration, and gilded-Socialism cashed-in post-presidency, the ACLU’s foray into fighting due process on campus, Stanford colleague Michael Levitt’s told-you-so warnings about pandemic predictions and the deadly impact of lockdowns, India’s standing as a U.S. ally, and Joe Biden’s expectations of Black Americans.

New Episode of The Classicist

Area 45: Victor Davis Hanson: Holding The Trump Card

Iran’s next move, a Senate impeachment trial, and the beginning of the Democratic primaries. Despite January and February’s uncertainties, Victor Davis Hanson, the Hoover Institution’s Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow, believes in this certainty: President Trump is on a path to reelection this fall.

New Encounter Books Interview

New Episode of Whiskey Politics

Victor Davis Hanson discusses the damaging disclosure about Obama keeping tabs on the FBI Hillary Clinton email investigation, State Department unmasking, why Hillary’s and Obama’s hubris may be their own downfall and how this can very well be a Watergate or Iran-Contra type scandal.